William MacDonald
Co-founder, chairman, CEO and president at Mill Creek Residential
If one had to come up with a formula for Mill Creek Residential’s success, “Nice guys finish first” would be a good encapsulation. Only 14 years after its founding, the multifamily developer has grown to become the nation’s second-largest apartment builder.
Not bad for a company that was birthed out of the financial crisis. Dallas-based development behemoth Trammell Crow was looking to spin off some of its multifamily business and then, boom, a potential acquirer disappeared as markets nosedived.
There was “no debt to be had,” notes William “Bill” MacDonald, who was tapped as one of the spinoff’s top executives. “Crow Holdings was our remaining [capital] partner; they didn’t want to develop. Our experience was that those few years after a downturn are the most profitable.”
Luckily, it was a friendly and partnerly discussion, said MacDonald. “We were given the time to find a replacement partner, and we did.”
Hanging in allowed the experienced team — Mill Creek Residential’s founding partners averaged more than a quarter-century in the business — to profit from the economy’s subsequent recovery. The private company currently has 13,000 homes under construction in 42 developments in 15 states and the District of Columbia.
Mill Creek is now based in Boca Raton, but University of Maryland grad MacDonald is a face-to-face team builder as much at home on a plane as he is in Florida. When Commercial Observer caught up with him, he had just finished visiting each of the heads of the company’s 21 different local offices.
There are a lot of moving parts. At press time, the company will be delivering first homes in markets as varied as Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Phoenix, Tampa and Aventura, Fla., and closing or starting 10 new projects in the next three months.
“It sounds cliché, but it’s not,” MacDonald said. “It’s down to the people and the goals of the organization. We have great, long-tenured, experienced people.” The secret sauce is the organization’s willingness to retain them in stormy markets. “Our competitors lay off people, but then they’re not ready to pounce on early opportunities,” MacDonald noted, referring to market upswings. “We’re not an accordion when it comes to people in a downturn.”
